With advancement of information technology, information recording technology, particularly magnetic recording technology, has progressed remarkably. In a magnetic disk used for an HDD (hard disk drive), which is one of the magnetic recording media, and so on, rapid miniaturization, production of thinner disk, increase in recording density and speedup of access rate have been continued. The HDD performs recording and playbacking while allowing a magnetic disk having a magnetic layer on a discal substrate to rotate at a high rate and allowing a magnetic head to fly floating above this magnetic disk.
Higher substrate strength is demanded for a magnetic disk since the rotary rate of the magnetic disk increases with the increase of access rate. In addition, with the increase of recording density, the magnetic head changes from a thin film head to a magnetoresistive head (MR head), further to a giant magnetoresistive head (GMR head), and the flying height from the magnetic disk of the magnetic head becomes narrower to around 8 nm. On this account, when there are irregularities on the magnetic disk surfaces, there may be caused crash failure due to collision of the magnetic head, thermal asperity failure which leads to read errors due to heat caused by adiabatic compression of the air or contact thereof. It becomes important to finish the main surfaces of the magnetic disk as an extremely smooth surface to suppress such troubles caused on the magnetic head.
Therefore, glass substrates have come to be used lately as substrates for a magnetic disk in place of conventional aluminum substrates. This is because the glass substrates consisting of glass, which is a rigid material, can be superior to the aluminum substrates consisting of a metal, which is a flexible material, in smoothness of the substrate surfaces, substrate strength and rigidness. The glass substrates used for these magnetic disks are produced by subjecting the main surfaces to grinding and polishing, etc. The grinding and polishing of the glass substrates can be performed by a method using a double-sided polishing apparatus having planet gear mechanism. In the planet gear mechanism, a glass substrate is sandwiched with upper and lower surface plates having abrasive pads (abrasive cloth) affixed thereto, and while an abrasion liquid in which abrasive grains (slurry) are mixed and suspended is supplied between the abrasive pads and the glass substrate, the glass substrate is moved relatively to the upper and lower surface plates thereby finishing the main surfaces of the glass substrate as surfaces having predetermined smoothness (for example, see Patent Document 1).
In addition, thin films (magnetic layers) of a several-nm level are formed on the glass substrate for a magnetic disk the surfaces of which have been smoothed by grinding and polishing, etc., thereby forming recording and playbacking trucks and so on. Therefore, in the manufacturing method of a glass substrate for a magnetic disk, it is an important assignment to remove even slight contamination on the glass substrate surfaces to keep clean the substrate surfaces as well as to achieve smoothing by grinding and polishing.
The glass substrate has also an aspect of a brittle material. Therefore, in the manufacturing method of a glass substrate for a magnetic disk, the glass substrate is dipped in a heated chemical strength liquid and lithium and sodium ions of the glass substrate surfaces layers are ion-exchanged respectively with sodium and potassium ions in the chemical strength liquid thereby forming compressive stress layers on the surface layers of the glass substrate so that they may be strengthened (glass strength step).